Dance of Nightmares
by Aki Vos
Summary: A rash of suicides hits Death City, rendering everyone a victim. Can Maka and Soul defeat their own self loathing to find the villain behind the deaths. Rated MA for the suicides.
1. Chapter 1

'_Earlier reports on the attack suggest it was a mugging. As to why the man fled suddenly has not been discerned. Around noon today local man Ely Thune committed suicide after having an argument with his wife. Thune was found by his wife when she came home from her mothers and found him on the floor. He had shot himself in the head with a revolver. This makes the third suicide this week. Now we go to weather. It's going to be more beautiful sunshine in Death City as the temperature will start to soar above 113 and remain heated until that low front arrives next Tuesday. This has been your local K.I.L.L. with all the news you need, join us…'_

The radio shut off silently leaving the air still around the room, it seemed to weight heavy on everything, as if a cloud of fog had been trapped in the room. The only discernable movement was from a cigarette butt that was left burning in the ash tray; it sent up a thin trail of smoke that twirled slowly and quickly up ending in a poof at its highest point. The clock ticked and they looked over at it, neither wanted to say anything. More smoke rose up and the butt extinguished. Tock.

There was a knocking, somewhere down the hall and in the main room someone was knocking hoping to get in. They moved their eyes to the other and waited. A flower pinched between her fingers, a black-eyed Susan with three petals missing, began to wilt slightly more. They moved their eyes down as another petal fell. There was a forth.

The knocking stopped and the door opened with a loud echoing creaking noise. It was followed quickly by soft-soled shoes that kept getting louder and louder. Marie didn't want to hear it. She lowered her head and dropped the flower bringing her hands to support long beautiful head of hair. She looked at Stein nearly in tears. He leaned over and reached under the front of the table picking up the flower. He set it on the table as a wreaked death scythe walked in. Spirit looked at them with a blank face breathing heavily when they heard the screen door again. The stab of heels hit the floor slowly and stopped in the door. Marie walked over to her and watched as Azura slowly shook her head with a small line of tears falling out each of her eyes.

Marie fell into Azura and began bawling, he sobs breaking the silence apart. Stein leaned back and reached in his pocket for his packet of French-made cigarettes. He pulled out the white lighter and a his last one from the package. He set the empty box on the table and lit up watching his mentor's face. Spirit was starring back with the same eyes as Stein. Spirit looked at him saddened, "I feel… I feel like I failed."

His words were weak and one of the tears he had tried to hide escaped out his right eye. He quickly wiped it away with a bit of shame with the soft skin on the back of his hand. Stein took in a deep breath in of the nicotine-toxin mix and exhaled through a wavering sigh. "Even for us… a Death of a child is hard. It's worse knowing if you could have been there three seconds sooner…"

"The parent's are coming; they'll be here in the morning. Shinigami will be hosting them. He's planning on having a student funeral before releasing the body." Spirit's hand reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small flask. He uncorked it and took a swig from it. "What am I supposed to say to Maka…?"

"It doesn't matter, it'll feel like her world's been turned upside down no matter what." Azura said. She patted Marie on the head and stroked her golden locks trying to calm her down. "When I was eight, I had an older cousin named Hideiki, we all thought he was happy… It took my parents four days to tell me, I never forgave them for hiding it from me for so long. I never was able to mourn for him properly… Maka will find out whether you tell her or not, but you can control how she views it from the beginning. Just try not to make it looked like an act of shame like my parents did."

Spirit corked his flask slowly. He shoved it back into his jacket and adjusted it to look like he had just put it on. He began walking out and touched Marie on the head to get her attention. "I'll let Shinigami know you won't be in tomorrow. You should rest."

Marie nodded and put her head back against Azura's shoulder nuzzling up to her like a teddy bear. Spirit nodded a slow thank you at the gun and began to head towards Stein's front door. He looked out to see the muscular outline of Sid heading in. Spirit grabbed the door and opened it for him. They stared at each other for a minute, both face with the same expression of loss. "You told them?"

"In a manner of speaking, Azura coming in crying really says a lot." Spirit lowered his head and ran his fingers back through her red hair feeling the grease all the stress has added. "How's Nygus? I know they were really close."

"It's like she lost a sister… She won't speak to anyone. Shinigami's staying with her tonight." Sid cooed softly. He scratched his head. "They found a note on her, she blamed stress, said she couldn't handle it anymore."

"She was twelve…" Spirit said and began walking around him. "How bad is the stress on a twelve year old that she would do that to herself?"

Sid just shrugged. Spirit walked out of the house and down the sidewalk starring at the graveyard around him. The headstones, most turning grey with various mosses growing off them, did little to help his guilt. He stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up as the street lamp in front of him blew its bulb. 'I know how you feel, tired.'

Spirit began walking, slowly, but determined. He grabbed his tie by the knot and began tugging it loose until the two ends fell apart landing on his chest. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the street sign. He was still blocks and blocks away from his daughter.

* * *

><p>"This really is stuck." Soul said as he tried to find one of the loops without a million hairs twisted around it. Soul decided that if he was going to free the band from Maka's hair he was going to have to do it carefully. He sat behind her, both in their clothes for bed, on the couch and carefully removed a single strand of hair at a time away from the band. "How did your hair get this bad."<p>

"I'm not sure, but it might have been during that sandstorm today. It whipped my hair around pretty badly." She admitted and stared at the clock. It was slowly ticking to ten at night and her hair wasn't giving up that easily. "Thanks for helping."

"No problem, I know how much you like your hair and more or less don't want to rip it out." Soul smiled and pulled another hair out. He had cleared one loop of the band and carefully pulled the pigtail through. The rest of the band immediately loosed and Soul was able to pull it out without any hair coming with it. He dangled it in front of his partner's face. "Ta-da!"

"Thank you! You're the best!" She said turning around smiling. "Now if I could only get you to do your homework."

"I do my homework…" A series of knocks shut their conversation down. Soul hopped off the couch and opened the door looking up into the face of Spirit. "Death Scythe? Do you know what time?"

"It's important." He said solemnly. Soul looked down at the floor and opened the door. Maka stood up off the couch and turned to face her father as he walked in the room. Soul shut the door and Spirit looked at his daughter. "A girl in your class, Maggie Cadwell, committed suicide tonight. We chased her to the top balcony on Shibusen, and I tried to catch her."

Spirit gulped and looked over at Soul. Soul's face was blank as he turned away and walked over to the couch and sat down. He set his head in his hands and just breathed. "Damn." He looked up to see Maka drop on her knees and rest her head on the couch.

"Maka… I'm sorry, I know she was your friend." Spirit said and watched as his daughter stood up emotionless and walked dazed into her room. She shut the door and both of them heard her flop on her bed. "Maka and Maggie were best friends up until you came along, I guess growing apart doesn't help the pain any."

"If there is a student death we should have school off, especially since it happened there. Tell Shinigami to cancel it." Soul said quickly. "Maka wouldn't be going anyway."

"I'll be back tomorrow morning. Please help Maka through this…" Spirit said and began to walk out closing the door. It creaked loudly as he pulled it along behind him. He sighed heavily and turned back one last time. "If she needs me I'll be at Shibusen."


	2. Chapter 2

'You're a freak.' He wasn't sure whose voice it was. Was it his, was it someone else's, was it even a voice at all? It echoed leaving an empty vibe around him where ever around him was if he was anywhere in the first place. He couldn't see anything, he was sure he was standing, but he might have been floating with no way up nor down. Stein turned to his right, there was a light, like sunlight peering around a doorway. Stein moved towards it and it opened for him. He looked around, his vision was blurry. His hands went to the grass that he was sitting in when he didn't tell them to.

His hands found his glasses; they were a familiar cool on the lens. He put them on his face and thought about how huge they were. Why were they huge? He then saw some of his old classmates when he first came to Shibusen. 'Hey.'

His voice echoed in his head but his mouth didn't move. A kid walked up and grabbed Stein by the hair pulling him up. "Stupid freak. That's why your parent's abandoned you, who'd want a freak like _you_?"

"Let me go! That hurts!" Stein's mouth cried. He was suddenly dropped as one the boy could no longer hold him. Stein's vision went back to blurry as he looked for his glasses again. There was a strange scuffling noise about and he heard a laugh.

"Stupid bastards. Think they can pick on everyone. Let's see them try to pick on me! Hey kid, looking for these?" Stein was handed his glasses. He put them on to see a familiar yet new face. He recognized it immediately but for some reason he didn't. "Don't worry, hang around me and those bullies will be too scared to touch you. Of course, we'll have to make you all cool like I am. And teach you how to punch."

"Wait… so you'll be my friend." Stein just sat back and watched. He began remembering this had already happened. 'I'm dreaming, that's it.' Stien in his dream stood up and looked up at Spirit who flicked some loose red hair behind his ear. "You'd be my first friend…"

"I do like the idea of being number one. Done. So, what program are you in?" Spirit said shoving his hands in as they began walking away down the path towards town. "I'm a second year in EAT, though I'm partner-less. I've been being trained with Higgins-Sensai, but even he's retiring soon. I guess you can only teach fighting so long before you're eighty and have to die."

Stein heard his childhood voice laugh. "I'm Stein, I'm not in anything yet… I'm supposed to start in the NOT next week, but, I'm not sure if Shibusen is even right for me… No one seems to like me…"

"Well, you're a downer aren't ya?" Spirit said and got an idea. He grabbed steins sleeve and quickly began pulling him to the school. "You can't let them win, instead, you've got to show them up so bad it'll make their eyes bleed when they look at you! Come on, let's talk to Shinigami."

"Talk to… To death? But… I'm…" Stein didn't get in another word as they began up the stairs where Shinigami was talking to his current staff. They stopped at the top and waited until his discussion was over.

"I just don't see why I can't live in the mirroooooor….It's not like I have any reason to build a house, they just come to the school to visit me." Shinigami argued. A heel quickly stomped to the ground. He looked at the woman and her child and sighed. "Yumiko-chan… pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease…. I don't want to have to take care of a house."

"We will be hosting many diplomats in the next couple of years; it is my advice as your current death scythe that you build a house to host them in! Diplomats would rather stay in a nice mansion then the school dormitories!" She said. He daughter tugged on her hand gently. "Yes, Yumi-chan, do you have something to add."

"Shinigami-sama, I drew a layout for your proposed house. It kept the interior simple yet with ornated detailing as you woul find in a French villa. Please review it at your leisure." Azusa handed over the folder to Shinigami and he opened it up. "I've also included looks for the outside, as you can see, I modeled it after the school so you can tell the ties between the two."

"Okaaaaay… You and you're daughter win. You can start building me a fancy house, just don't go crazy." Shinigami said and pulled out his Black Skull credit card. Yumiko and he daughter took off down the stairs as Shinigami exampined his future house more. He looked over at Spirit and sighed. "Spirit-chan, women are craaaazy. So, who's this with the cute little glasses?"

"I'm Frank Stein, sir. I'll be starting here next week." Stein said sticking his hand out nervously.

"Hello Stein-chan, I'm Shinigami, I'll be your headmaster. What class are you in?" He asked bending his knees to look them straight in the eye. 'I was so short…' Stein thought watching his memory.

"That's why I brought him." Spirit said quickly. "You know my class is short on meisters… Let him join EAT and be my partner. He needs a friend here and I need a partner, it works well, Shinigami-sama. Please, we'll start training right away!"

"Hm… Well, usually I prefer them to be in the same grade… But you are right Spirit-chan. Stein-chan, would you like to be Spirit-chan's partner?" Stein felt his head nod furiously. Shinigami's mask smiled somewhat. "Okay, why don't you go practice since you two will be behind the others in ways of working together? Don't worry too much though, it won't take much work to become good at using a scythe, I can tell from your soul."

* * *

><p>"Stein!" Stein opened his eyes to see Marie above him. She jumped back at him suddenly waking up and sat down on the edge of the bed. He sat up and wiped the sweat off his brow. He turned around and saw that Spirit was in the door way, leaning as he usually was, but in a more distracted sense. "Shinigami-sama just got done talking to the family. They're ready to take the body but Nygus found something odd during her autopsy, he wants you to go help."<p>

"Right." He got out of bed and grabbed his shirt off the floor. He sniffled as he put it on and walked out the door past them, Spirit turned and followed him out of the house. Stein's door swung shut and Marie stood up and took the tea tray from his nightstand. He had taken it to bed with him. Marie opened the kettle to see that it had been emptied. She sighed, "He must be having nightmares too…"

Marie walked to the kitchen, humming to keep herself out of her own head. She set the tray in the sink and began running the water to wash it. There was a knock at the door; Marie shut the water off and saw Maka and Tsubaki at the door waiting calmly. She opened the door and invited them in. "How are you two doing?"

"I don't know… Kind of void-ish… I've lost friends before, but never like this." Maka said quietly as she entered and sat down as instructed at the table. Tsubaki said down next to her quietly. "Soul and Black Star went to the student vigil this morning… I just could get up to go. I was going to go to the hospital, Megan's partner Ray is in there. Apparently he's in a depressive fit. I don't know him personally, but I think it's important to go see him. Would you go with us?"

"Of course, Maka-chan." Marie said and dried her hands off. She set the towel on the counter and walked over. She offered a hand to each girl and they headed out the door with Marie as their support.

* * *

><p>'What the Hell?' Stein looked at it not sure what he was really looking at. He tilted his head nad turned his bolt. He poked it with a gloved finger and sighed. 'This is weird, but I need to get the body back… I hope they don't open up her skull.'<p>

Stein picked up his scalap and carefully cut the blacken part off the brain and set it aside in a jar of preservation liquid and put the rest back in the little girls head. Nygus took the jar and moved it over to a fridge letting the door shut slowly. "I've never seen grey matter go black."

"Witch craft could be behind it. A strong enough spell on someone can manifest in different ways. I've even read about it causing people to have tumors appear and the spells broken when it's removed." He said and placed the top of the skull back on. Grabbing a needle and some thread he carefully began sowing it back together. "I don't think there's a spell strong enough to make a thirteen year old go from happy to suicidal in one weekend. Has her partner said anything?"

"He said that he woke up one morning and she refused to get out of bed, he went to get her medicine and when he got back she was writing all over her wall and crying about how bad everything was and about how her father never loved her." Nygus said and sat down next to Stein starring at her death certificate, "She saw her father every month, they were very close, and he's very confused."

"What's his name?"

"Ray DeMorria. He's a fourth generation weapon, though no one's ever made it to death scythe. He is a machete like the rest, except unlike his father and grandfather, he's double bladed." There was a small knock on the door. Sid opened it and avoided looking at the body. "Sid, what's up?"

"We have a student transferring into Shibusen. Shinigami's all tied up at the moment, would you mind helping me show him around?" He said quietly. "We also need to run the athletics test for him."

"Okay." Nygus got up and followed Sid out of the room. The door closed slowly leaving Stein to keep stitching the girl's forehead closed. He took his time and tried to make each stitch appear tiny, and blend into the skin without pulling it awkwardly. He finished and cut the string. He set the needle down on the tray and walked up to the side and stared down at the face, now pale and still. "You were a good student…"

He grabbed the zipper and closed her body bag.


End file.
